all that you could fake
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: 'We should stop doing this to ourselves,' she whispers brokenly.


**Title: **all that you could fake

**Rating: **T  
**Spoilers: **general

**Characters**: Blaise/Padma  
**Summary: ** We need to stop, she says.

**Disclaimer: **disclaimed

**Author Note: For the Break Up challenge on HPFFC forums.**

**Author: **_Lady Avaritia_

Padma is not like her sister. She lives in a world of books and ink, and sweet-smelling old parchment, Ravenclaw is a house on air, where you cannot bloom, you cannot live, Ravenclaw is a home for her intelligence, no, her brilliance, for her beautiful mind, as it keeps her there with its dark secrets, do you want to know this, do you want to know this, do you?

She does.

Padma has never wanted to leave the house of air. Some would say that she withered and yellowed among brittle old pages, but really, she wouldn't have had it any other way.

She has never bothered herself with petty rivalries and hurtful school gossip, and so, she had never really known him before eighth year, when he was one of the six seventh-year Slytherins who returned to Hogwarts. The other five were Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bullstrode and Daphne Greengrass, all of them, ruined, darkened children made fatally infamous by their parents' mistakes. She knew them briefly, by face, and by repressed hurtful memories from the previous year.

Blaise Zabini was, probably, the most dangerous boy she had ever met, and the most beautiful. His skin was the color of that fancy French drink Chow liked to have on breakfast, café au lait, and his eyes were like molten dark chocolate, with small caramel sparkles in them. His hair was dark, not black, but not exactly browns either, rather a mix between the two. He had an aristocratic profile, high cheekbones, and full, sculptured lips. He was tall, but muscular, strongly built, after seasons of playing Chaser for Slytherin.

He sauntered though the stone halls like he owned them, with an easy grace and a handsome smile, as if it was still fifth year and Slytherin was still at the peak of its glory.

He openly disrespected some teachers, and showed familiarity to others, he ignored authorities, he slacked like it was going out of fashion, he fell asleep in class, and he was on Academic Results probation before the middle of the first semester.

And after much begging, owling and yelling in McGonagall's office, his mother got her wish, and he was assigned a tutor. And that tutor was her.

Padma had to leave the house of air, and step into the real world.

And there, in the real world, for all his beauty, riches, and smiles, Blaise Zabini was just as hated as Draco Malfoy, except even more, because, he unlike Draco, had never truly switched sides, not really. He had just skipped the battle, taken the opportunity to get evacuated and left. Padma thought him despicable.

Their first session was in the library in their free period. He was there before her, casually resting his chin on his elegant hand, reading a dark leather-bound tome. She studied him as he was like that, reclined, careless and oddly attractive, his shirt sleeves carelessly rolled up, and the Dark Mark staring at her painfully, like an open wound, or an ugly scar that refused to fade. She tapped the table with her hand to get his attention. His eyes flicked to her, and he smiled.

'Well, hello there, beautiful,' he said, and his eyes glowed playfully, like burning coal.

'Don't fool around,' she told him, tiredly, 'I'm here to help you get off of rock bottom, and rocket your grades into orbit.'

He shook his head.

'Rock bottom… You know when you hit it. I haven't, just yet.'

'What are you reading anyway?'

'A textbook.'

'Oh, dear! Unbelievable!' she said sardonically. 'On what?'

'Advanced Dark Arts for Third Course Specializants, by Lorna Marino.'

Padma sighs and rubs her forehead tiredly.

'Never mind,' she says. 'Let's start with potions.'

'What about potions?'

'The basics.'

'I know the basics.'

'Do you, really?' she proceeds to fir e rapid staccato of questions, to all of which he replies quickly and concisely. She makes the questions progressively more and more difficult until it occurs to her that there was a reason Blaise was one of Slughorn's favorites. She's already exhausted her NEWTs example questionnaire, and he just looks at her with his dark eyes and he smiles infuriatingly.

'Can I go back to my book now?' he asks innocently.

'No,' she snaps decisively. 'We're moving to Transfiguration.' He throws his head back and laughs, it's a low melodious sound that makes strange things happen to her.

'If you think it's so funny, then here's an example written NEWT for the subject,' she says haughtily, and with an air of superiority hands him her questionnaire.

He pushes his chair back and leans over the yellow paper. His fingers clench around the quill, and he begins writing. His hand moves in flashes across the pages, as he writes down his answers, hardly ever stopping to think about what to write. Smugly, he hands her the questionnaire back so she can check it. He's got a few gaps in the details and one or to major mistakes, but Padma is genuinely impressed at the speed of his answers. She assumes that with such mostly accurate theoretical knowledge, he's pretty god with the practical part too, but decides to leave it for their next session.

'Fine,' she says through thinly pressed lips. 'Go back to your book. I'll be waiting for you tomorrow, here at the same time.'

'Yes, ma'am,' he says, and waves at her.

'Five points from Slytherin,' she snaps, having been appointed prefect and all.

'Ouch.'

~x~

Their next meetings go relatively the same way – with her attacking him from all flanks, and him brilliantly defending himself. She shoots at him her requirements, nose buried in her NEWTs questionnaire like it's her personal Bible (for most Ravenclaws, it is), and he performs all the spells with a graceful ease, admitting to his mistakes with a bright smile, and graciously accepting her corrections.

She slowly begins to understand (as she should have known from that very first day, when he described Markson's theory of transfiguring an object into a live one), that aside from being incredibly handsome and dangerous, he is also probably the most intelligent non-Ravenclaw she's seen. He could probably give Hermione a run for her money, though that's just a tad bit doubtful.

'Blaise,' she tells him seriously one afternoon. Their session is under one of the tall trees near the lake. He's rolled up his shirt sleeves as usual, displaying his Dark Mark for all to see, and his shirt is unbuttoned a few buttons further than usual. He's allowed himself the liberty of laying his head on her lap, but she hadn't objected.

'Hmm?' he says, 'What?'

'You know you're failing almost every subject on the curriculum, even though we've been doing this for almost two months now, right?'

'I know,' he tells her, and he sounds tired, all of sudden.

'That's not the problem here, Blaise. You're failing at life,' she tells him frankly.

'I know,' he repeats monotonously.

'Why? Why do you keep on doing this to yourself?'

'Why not?' he shrugs. 'It's not like it matters. I'm a Slytherin who fought on the side of the Dark Lord and whose mother is nothing more than a whore,' he spits the words out spitefully, angrily.

'What?' she asks appalled at his language.

'Oh, please,' he tells her. 'The whole world knows. She's been divorced more than seven times, possibly more, I haven't seen my father in fifteen years, and she's cut me off since I was in sixth year to ensure that her husbands include her in their will. I bet you didn't know that. The Malfoys have been supporting me for the last three years.'

'Is that how you repay them, then? By wasting the education they pay for?' she attacks him, but she's become suddenly shaky, and he can see it.

'Lucius hardly cares about that sort of thing. He knows my plans for the future don't require a stellar Hogwarts diploma.'

'What are your plans for the future, huh,' Padma snaps in turn, 'a killer for hire for a dark lord wannabe? I don't know why I even bother.'

His shoulders line with tension, his eyes darken. He pushes up and away from her.

'Then don't.' he sneers, shoves his hands in his pockets and stalks off towards the castle.

~x~

Padma confines in Parvati

'He is brilliant,' she says, and throws her hands in the air exasperatedly, 'He could be the ace student of the school, if he would just try!'

'Maybe he doesn't want to try, Padma,' Parvati offers consolingly.

'That's my problem with him! If keeps on going like that, he will get expelled for not sustaining the academic standard! Why is he doing this? Why did he even bother to come back if he didn't intend to even try?'

'I know why you're so concerned,' Parvati cries out suddenly triumphant, and jumps from the comfy red coach on the Gryffindor common room.

'And why is that?' Padma inquires.

'You like him!' she squeals and claps her hands. 'Padma's got a crush, Padma's got a crush, Padma's got a cru~ush!' she sings.

'Really mature,' Padma mutters.

'OMG, really?' Lavender gushes from the other side of the room where she'd been chatting to Seamus. Ever since she became a werewolf and her hearing sharpened, she had acquired the annoying habit of listening in on people's conversations.

'Yup,' Parvati said, grinning like a fox about to devour a chicken. 'On the Slytherin Italian Stallion, Blaise Zabini.'

'Don't… call him that,' Padma squirmed in her armchair.

'But you won't deny you like him?'

'I don't like him, okay! Don't ever speak like that again.'

~x~  
Parvati was not a Divination star student for nothing. Blaise and Padma officially got together just two weeks after their first fight under that tree.

It was like flying on a jinxed broom, being with Blaise. You never knew when you'd fall. He smoked and he drank, somehow managing to sneak alcohol and tobacco on school grounds, through the help of Slytherin alumni. He hadn't had a decent father figure since ever, his mother had left his father only a year after he'd been born, and he'd lost touch with the man aged three. When he'd turned seventeen, his mother had immediately cut him off. His best friend was Draco Malfoy. He'd lived with the Malfoys for the last three years, and Lucius was paying for his education.

He liked both boys and girls, but he preferred girls. His first time with a boy had been Draco in fifth year. He was a Chaser in the Slytherin team, but he preferred being a Beater.

He wanted to graduate the Roman Academy of the Ancient (read Dark) Arts and become a practitioner for the International Magical Control Agency. He was in Hogwarts on his mother's insistence. His dual citizenship demanded a diploma of the mandatory education. He felt no motivation to show his intellect, or to be a good student. He'd started failing school on purpose at thirteen, when his mother had, on the last day of August, asked him how's school going.

He was bad, but down, inside, he was also hurt and alone, a boy wishing for his mother's attention. He was full of spite and anger. He told her he planned to seek his father out when he got out of school.

And as she learned about him, dark secrets, but never the darkest, truths, but never full ones, she told him about herself. How she had the small fragile hope to be a Transfigures and reenter Hogwarts as a teacher, how she had always been outshined by Parvati, who, while far less brilliant, was much more illustrious. Her parents like Parvati better. Parvati was the dominant twin. Parvati had laughed at her when she'd been sorted in Ravenclaw, and called her a nerd. Parvati told her she was fat. Her world was being filtered though a series of comparisons with Parvati. She didn't have any friends. She like Quidditch, but the captains of the Ravenclaw team always dismissed her on principle. As a girl she'd crushed on Lorcan d'Eath.

She thought the Dark Arts were fascinating, but was afraid of being consumed by them. If she couldn't teach in Hogwarts, she'd depart for the continent, and become a practitioner in a vampire kiss. Vampires, she'd heard, were great appreciators of magic, having been stripped of their own magical power during the change. She was interested in the idea of getting to know the ancient creatures.

Her mother hated vampires. Her father ignored her, always. When she'd been little, she was considered less pretty than Parvati, even though they were identical.

It occurred to her, at some point, that this relationship was unhealthy. They were just too desperately broken children, harmed by the war in which they'd fought in opposing sides, and they did nothing but cause each other harm.

They had yelling matches that could, according to Blaise, rival the Malfoys, in which things were thrown, hexes flew across the room, and she could raise him into a high enough rage, he'd start cursing her in Italian. He could bring her to tears, just with words, and she could make him break down just with words as well, pushing his buttons, bringing all his failures up, calling on his guilt and feeling of abandonment.

And afterwards they'd shag. He wasn't gentle; he'd never been the gentle type. He was demanding and aggressive, his long artistic hands leaving blue imprints all over her dark skin, and his teeth marking the soft flesh of her neck, and she wondered who'd abused him that made him want to be the abuser? She matched him though, thrust for thrust, just as aggressive as he was, digging her nails into his muscled back until he bled, and biting him as hard as he bit her.

It occurred to her, that what they had was falling less and less from a relationship into just two angry teenagers yelling insults at each other and then fucking, and it wasn't good. He wasn't good for her.

~x~  
'Because all you care about is your stupid books, but reality check, Padma, they aren't everything!'

'Well, I suppose I could say the same about the Dark Arts!'

'They are my life!'

'You have no life! What's more, you have no future! Admit it Blaise, outside these castle walls, you are nobody!'

'Haw dare you, you _cagna__stupido,__si pensa di poter__solo andare__in giro a dire__cose del genere__? __Come osi__alzarsi e__raccontarmi__la vita__quando non si è__alzata__dai tuoi__libri__per vedere__realmente__il mondo__!*'_

Padma stilled working the translation slowly through her mind. She'd picked up Italian a few weeks ago, fooling herself into believeing that it would bring her closer to him.

'You'd be the one to speak about the real world,' she scoffs at him, 'You didn't even know about its existence until you mother decided that you're too much of a burden to her and tossed you away. She did herself right.'

His eyes widen, and his mouth remains half open, as he stares at her. She's crossed the line and she knows it.

'Get out Padma,' he tells her in awhisper.

'What?'

'Get out now, before I hit you,' he repeats, strained. 'I said GET OUT!' the yell is accompanied by a vase crashing into the wall cantimetres from her head. She runs out of his dorm room, and slams the door behind her, resting her back on the wooden surface as she slides down and breaks crying, sobs racking her frame.

She can hear him on the other side, as he throws things around, shoots hexes at furniture. She'd made him angry. No. Blaise is always angry, she didn't make him such. His anger is always there, just beneath the surface, waiting to bubble over the top. Why is he so angry?

She spots a pair of black shoes apporaching her, and raises her tear streaked face to meet the cold eyes of Draco Malfoy.

'I heard what you said,' he informs her detachedly. 'You should not have said that.'

'I know,' she sobs desperately. He turns around, and leaves.

'I'll just get my bathroom stuff later,' she hears him tell Teo Nott.

'What, again?' the other boy demands.

'It's not my fault. She's Blaise's.'

Their voices fade.

So do the sounds from within the room. She judges it safe to enter, and does so.

Blaise is in front of the fire place, curled on his side like a wounded animal, staring emptily at the fire. All around him is complete destruction, and something tells her Draco won't be getting his bathroom stuff at all ever. There's blood, and she guesses Blaise must've cut himself while on a rage spree.

'Blaise,' she says softly, timidly as she approaches him. 'Blaise.'

She kneels beside his head, and smooths his hair with her hand, touches his face gently, caresses his beautiful features.

'I am sorry,' she tells him in earnest.

He still doesn't react. He's cluthing his middle, as if he;s afraid he might fall apart unles he physically hold himself together.

'We should stop doing this to ourselves,' she whispers brokenly.

'Yes,' he manages out finally, but even that seems to have been too much.

She Leaves for good.

*AN** This is what Blaise tells Lavender during their fight: '**_stupid bitch, you think you can just go around saying things like that? How dare you get up and tell me about life when you have not gotten up from your books to actually see the world!'_


End file.
